What's Good? Sign-ups for fkficfest/fkficfest will open this week! This week is also the 105th anniversary of the great San Francisco earthquake and fire. Together, these facts bring me to April's recommendation, wiliqueen's "July 22, 1916" (2010), which she wrote as one of the generous surprise-party treats at the end of FKFicFest 2010, and which builds on a real incident in San Francisco history, achieves the feel of a first-season flashback, and foreshadows Mai Chung's fate (in "Cherry Blossoms").

The six and a half hours between the sound of the explosion and sunset were among the longest of Nick's very long life.

I'd previously refrained from spotlighting any of the great FKFicFest stories as part of the recommendation-of-the-month project, because we all read them just last year. But it's time for a reminder of how much fun the game was, don't you think? See you there!

-----What's New on FKFic-L? Three new stories by one author posted to the list in March. (Unfortunately, the one author was me.) No new stories have posted in April so far.

In a bit of serendipity I didn't think to mention until just now, the Netflix movie I happened to watch last night was Passchendaele, an exceptional Canadian WWI drama starring Paul Gross and Caroline Dhavernas. Janette's indictment of "the machines they make" to wage war is heartbreakingly well illustrated in it.

Regarding Passchendaele, oh, my. I had not heard of that movie, but will now see whether I'm so lucky that the library might have it. It sounds very grim indeed, but perhaps the movie version grants more peace and redemption than the real-life events that Mr. Gross's grandfather experienced... and if it does not, that's fitting, too.